


Keep Me Right

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 14:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14191020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: Victor is ordered to bring in Dean Winchester at any cost. Alive’s a bonus, but not necessary. The problem is that Victor knows Dean’s kid brother is a good man who has just been compelled by his psycho sibling on this gory road trip from Hell. If only he can save Sam while hunting Dean...





	1. Mission

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rirren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rirren/gifts).



> This story is in response, and with apologies, to Rirren, who prompted me on Tumblr. You know who does that? Crazy people.

Victor’s fascination, his unhealthy obsession, began with Dean Winchester. He was a hunter of monsters. And Dean was the coldest monster who walked the earth. 

Sam was only even on his radar as an accomplice, and perhaps a victim. Sam had been trained by the same lunatic father, surely, but he hadn’t fit the same mold. Both men, and probably the survivalist who raised them, were clearly genius level, but Sam had worked his ass off to get away to Stanford. They had gone to over thirty schools in just their high school years alone, but everywhere they went, there was a teacher left behind who was convinced that Sam was going to rise above homelessness and apparent neglect to do great things, in spite of his unstable father and delinquent brother. 

The sheer effort of transferring credits from all those schools, let alone keeping up in every course, was mind-blowing, and it was too much work for Dean, who obviously had other, more sinister things on his mind. Sam, though, had kept his head in books, and muscled on for four years until he did the impossible, and earned himself a free ride to the Ivy League. 

So why would he leave it? 

Victor was convinced the kid had been brainwashed by his father and compelled by his brother. Once Dean had killed Sam’s girlfriend, in a way that paralleled John’s murder of their mother two decades before, Sam was forced along on his brother’s violent road trip in that classic car. Who knew what garbage Dean was feeding his brother to keep him in line, and in the passenger seat?

Victor liked the car. It would be a pleasure to compound it and auction it, so that Dean Winchester never saw it again. That car was far too good for the man behind her wheel. 

No, Sam was a victim as much as that Chevy, but he would let the justice system worry about that. Victor’s job was to catch Dean. Alive was a bonus, but not necessary. At this point, the old men at the Bureau just wanted the killer off the map. He was bad for their numbers. 

Agent Reidy was on record as not supporting Victor’s unconventional tactics. Calvin liked to play by the handbook. It was the handbook for a reason, as he pointed out. But tried and true methods weren’t working on Dean Winchester, and Victor was beginning to think he was never going to get to sink his teeth into this particular monster. He lay awake at night with the thought that Dean might be killed by someone else before Victor had the chance to stare into his eyes. Hell, at this point, Dean might die of old age before Victor caught him. So he had devised a plan, let Calvin think he was just taking a few days off, and got to work. 

And that was how he had ended up at a bar in Wisconsin, staring into the eyes of the wrong Winchester.


	2. Arms

Sam’s muscles ached. 

It was strange the way the actual job sometimes reminded him of training days. Dean had always been the loyal one, the unchanging, uncomplaining, uncomplicated son and soldier. Teachers at school thought he was an arrogant slacker. But Sam knew better. He had seen Dean focused, dedicated.

Sam was the problem on training days. He had always wanted to know why. 

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean had hissed a million times. 

But Sam was stubborn. “I want to know!”

John had growled down at him. “Hold your form, Sam,” he barked. 

His arms were long past wanting to give out. It was only his defiant will that kept his posture solid. “I am,” he shot back. “And you didn’t answer me.”

“I don’t have to answer you,” John reminded him. The voice was quiet as always, lethal. 

“This is bullshit.” 

“Sam!” Dean wheezed in a far deeper voice. 

But he ignored his brother. “If you’re not going to let me go on hunts, why am I training for them?”

“You need to watch your tone, son.”

The soft warning made his aching arms begin to shake. “I just want to know why!”

“You’re not ready for hunts so long as you’re still questioning me! There’s no time in a hunt for me to explain things to you. When I tell you to do something, I need to trust that you’re going to do it. You’ll get yourself or a civilian killed if you can’t follow an order some day. No commander would stop in a battle to explain his orders to a soldier.”

Sam scowled darkly down at the ground. 

“Dean, push up if you need to.”

It was a horrible thing to say to his big brother, and Sam winced in empathy. Even in his anger, he knew John didn’t realize the conflict he could cause inside his elder son’s head with just those few words. Dean was holding his body up from the ground in a pushup plank. Sam was simply holding his own weight in that same plank position, but Dean’s was more advanced. His hands formed a diamond under his chin, and his arms were bent to hold him just barely aloft. His form was perfect. From the corner of his eye, Sam could see his brother’s powerful arms and back muscles defying gravity’s pull. Sam was certain he would never be so strong. His more basic form was aching so badly that shifting his gaze to Dean’s nearly made his own arms give out. 

But John’s words were more complicated than the man knew. An order to push up would have been a welcome relief, and Dean would have immediately complied. That was not the order, however. John had told him to push up if he needed to, if his strength was giving out, if he couldn’t continue to hold the form any longer. Whether it was John’s intention or not, those words were a challenge, and Dean wouldn’t win, couldn’t. If he released his form to ease the strain on his triceps, shoulders and back, it was a failure. If he held the form too much longer, his muscles would make the decision for him, and that was a worse failure, to fall instead of lift himself out. It depended on how stubborn Dean was on any particular day as to which failure he would choose. 

Dean couldn’t move his head, or risk breaking his form and collapsing, but his gaze slid toward Sam. “No, sir,” he groaned out finally. “Can wait for Sam.”

Years later, the memory made Sam smile. It was so Dean to respond in that way. Those six words had summed up everything about their relationship, with each other and with their father. It was sibling rivalry, and it was arrogant obstinacy. It was Dean’s utter loyalty to his brother, refusing to take relief Sam couldn’t have. It was his complete devotion to John, his unshakable deference to his hero, and his lifelong ache for approval. 

Those things were going to get Dean killed one day. Several days. Several times in one day. 

Today, Sam’s arms were sore. He had spent the better part of Thursday night with his wrists cuffed behind his back, and then Friday morning lifting himself out of a damn underground cavern with only the use of his arms, while carrying not just his own body weight, but that of a civilian, who clung to his back and had to be reminded repeatedly that in order to climb, he had to be allowed to breathe. He could still feel arms clutching him around the neck. Upon making it to the top, Dean had gotten the guy to safety, reported that he had killed the monster of the week, and then asked what had taken him so long breaking out. If Sam had still had the ability, he probably would have punched him. 

After Navy showers in the sketchiest motel they had used in years, and a bit of half-hearted first aid, Dean had declared it “nap time until Sunday,” and immediately passed out on the good bed. 

After being awake and struggling to save himself and his charge for two days, all the while wondering if his brother had been eaten, Sam should have been out like a light. Instead, he was painfully restless. It felt like he was going to burst out of his own skin like a freaking shifter. 

Sam needed to be touched. His muscles ached, but so did his skin. Since Jess, there had been very few who were worth the risk, even fewer he could work up the courage to approach. He could do what Dean did to gain company for the night, but it was always a little awkward when Sam did it. But what Sam lacked in natural talent, he made up for by expanding his options. Sam was bisexual, and tonight, he was going to be whatever he needed to be for some guy to want to take him home.

So that was how he had ended up in a gay bar in Wisconsin, eyeing a gorgeous man whose gaze kept slipping toward him.


	3. Starved

“Where did you get off to last night?”

Sam lifted his face from his pillow, and groaned as the last few days hit him through anguished muscle memory. 

“You sound like a moose.”

He let his face drop back down. “You sound like you suck.”

His brother snorted. “That the best you can do?”

“Yup.” Sam took a breath. “Show of hands. How many in the room climbed a thousand foot rock ledge yesterday with a spider monkey strapped to his throat? Just me?”

“It wasn’t a thousand feet.”

“I think it was.” When he finally turned onto his back, he saw Dean packing their bags. “Dude. Don’t touch my stuff. What are you doing anyway? I thought we were staying another night.”

His brother turned to stare at him. “Case is over, Sam! Time to move on!”

“But you said-“

“I say stuff. Doesn’t matter. Look, we’re hunters. We have a limited amount of time left on the planet. I don’t want to spend any more of it in this hole.”

Sam wrinkled his nose. He couldn’t blame him for that. The motel reeked. “Yeah. Okay.” He pushed himself up and moved to pull on his jeans. A key card fell out of his pocket onto the floor. 

Dean moved faster than he did this morning. He snatched at the evidence and smirked. “Ah ha! This isn’t a key card from this place!”

“No shit, jackass. Give it back.”

Dean leapt back with a laugh. “Who are you meeting at...at the Red Street Inn? Sounds fancy!”

“You’re such an idiot. It’s not much better than this place.”

Anything would have been better than this place. But it wasn’t so much the motel room as the man in it that had kept Sam’s attention. 

Victor was almost painfully handsome. Of all the men in that bar last night, the fact that he had chosen Sam was still inexplicable, and he had said as much. 

The man had laughed. “You’re a good looking guy, Sam. Give yourself credit.”

Sam had sighed, nearly moaned, into a kiss. Victor felt incredible. No matter the gender, Sam loved an athletic body, and Victor had that. When Sam pressed him gently against the wall inside the hotel room, he could feel the hard muscles in his chest, and it made him want to tear into the shirt that separated them. 

But Victor liked being coy, it seemed. Sam rarely had time to waste in his hookups, but Dean had said they weren’t leaving till Sunday, and that meant Sam would have all day Saturday to recover from both the hunt and the chase. 

“Hold on there, kid. Maybe I like to hear some talk first.”

A shyness broke over him suddenly, and he stepped back. “God, I hope not,” he blurted out. 

Victor’s laugh was full of conceit, but even that made Sam’s fever hotter. There would never be a day in which confidence didn’t turn Sam on. He would protect the weak, but he would always gravitate toward the strong. 

He swallowed down his heat and took a step back. “I’m sorry. Yeah, okay. It just…isn’t what I’m good at. You don’t mean, like...talk. Right?” Dean had once named the language Sam reverted to when around someone attractive “Samanthian.” It was like the part of his brain that stored his knowledge of the English language gave way to allow for unlimited blushing. 

This time, Victor’s laugh made his stomach flip. “No, not sexy talk. I can see you’re not exactly a pillow talk kind of guy.”

There was the blush, right on cue. “Yeah. No. Not at all.” He could fake it if he had to. He just had to think of all the moronic lines Dean used, and repeat some of the stupid stuff from pay-per-view. But it wasn’t him. It all sounded ridiculous. 

“No,” Victor said again. “No, just talk.”

“Okay.” Sam wasn’t certain what he was supposed to say, so he waited. 

Victor touched his hair gently, making him shiver. “You’re beautiful, Sam,” he breathed suddenly, as if it had just occurred to him, in spite of his earlier comment. 

The younger man lowered his eyes. He took a deep breath, filled his lungs with this man’s subtle cologne. He heard himself say something he had never said to anyone. “No. I’m lonely. And I’ll be whatever you want me to be tonight. Just...tell me what you want.”

A strange flash of intelligence mixed with curiosity on Victor’s face. “Really?”

Sam let his eyes slip shut. “You were at that place for a reason. So was I. I’m leaving town in a day, and I just need a connection, someone to be something to, just for a few hours. So yeah. Really. I’ll be whatever you were looking for.”

Victor’s voice softened. “You’re a good guy, aren’t you, Sam?”

“I try to be. Unless-unless that’s not what you want. Because I’ve got something dark in me too, if that’s what you chose me for.”

There was something like fascination in the man’s voice now. “That what some guys want from you, Sam?”

He swallowed again, and shrugged. He looked up and made his gaze cool. “Some like a big guy who can take from them. I guess I look like I might be rough enough.”

“That what you want?”

This guy was impossible to read. Sam narrowed his eyes, then gave another shrug. “I told you. I’ll be whatever you want. But no. It can be fun to toss a guy onto a bed or slam him into a wall, if that’s what he’s into. But that’s not what I look for.”

Victor nodded slowly. “You like getting tossed and slammed around?”

A cloud draped over him. Victor hadn’t seemed like that kind, the one who sought out large, strong men just to tear them down. Sam was prepared to be that, had been that before. But it usually involved a lot of submission that went against Sam’s nature, just so the other guy could feel powerful.

“Sam?”

Sam cleared his throat. “Look,” he said hoarsely. “Living the way I do...moving place to place like I do...I take what I can get when I can get it. And I’m a big guy. When a dude is hooking up for just a night, he picks a guy by body type, right? So when I go to a bar like that, sometimes I get a guy who wants me because I’m big, either because he likes that or because he wants to break that. I get it. Power play isn’t my thing, but I’ll do whatever a guy needs to get him off. Because I’m leaving in a day, and I’ll take what I’m given.”

Victor was staring at him. 

Sam sighed. “Maybe I better go. My brother is waiting for me anyway, wondering where I am. We travel together, and he gets…” He didn’t bother finishing that sentence. Why was he getting so maudlin on this guy? Being chained up for six hours last night, waiting to be eaten, must have put him in a darker mood than it usually did. 

But Victor’s eyes had flashed with that intelligence again, and he grabbed Sam’s arm before he could leave. “Brother, huh?”

“Yeah. It doesn’t matter.”

“Older brother?”

Sam blinked at him. “Yeah. We’re...partners. Got a small business, and we travel together.”

The intensity of Victor’s voice was odd. But he was smiling through it. “Keeps you on a short leash, huh?”

He huffed a laugh. “You could say that.”

Victor made a sudden movement, and if Sam weren’t so exhausted and frustrated, he might have shoved him away. Instead, he just stared as Victor grabbed hold of Sam’s wrists, and held them up. 

“What the-“

“He do this?”

Sam hissed in his breath as Victor’s hands closed around his angry red cuff marks. “What? No!”

“That guy hurting you, Sam? Like those guys who want to break something strong? Your brother that kind? What’s he do, Sam? This is what it looks like when a guy’s been cuffed, when he’s been struggling to free himself. Your brother do this to you?”

Sam backed away, and ripped his sore wrists from his grip. “Dude! No! Stop. That was...that was another guy’s game, okay? Asshole left me cuffed to a bed, stuck me with a room bill too. Why would you-I’m leaving, okay? Get off me.”

The handsome stranger put his hands up in surrender. “Wait!” He licked his lips, and seemed to be deciding something. “Sam, wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it, okay? I just saw those marks on you, and-and I know what it looks like when somebody’s been hurt. It ain’t right to assume, though, so I’m sorry. I don’t like the idea of somebody hurting you, or making you do something maybe you don’t want to do.”

Some tension eased in his shoulders, and Sam began to smile again, as he realized that might have been Dean’s reaction to seeing a mark on a girl he didn’t know. “Yeah? Maybe you should make me do something I do want to do.”

Victor’s dark eyes sparkled, and his own wolfish grin returned. “Well, now, you did say talking isn’t what you’re good at. You should show me what it is you are good at.”

Hunger was making its way back into Sam’s blood, whispering in his veins, making him shiver. “Show me what it is you want, and I promise I’ll be good at it.”

A strong hand led him toward the bed, and pulled him down onto it, onto him.

Sam’s skin cried out for touch. He didn’t care what made Victor tick. He wanted to be touched. He wanted to fill every desire the man had, and leave him soaked and sated. He wanted to feel Victor shake apart in orgasm, over and over again, until he couldn’t anymore. Sam needed a lover who would let him wring out every last desire. If Victor would just touch him, Sam would give him anything and everything he wanted. 

Sam always insisted on condoms. It was one thing he and his brother did exactly the same way while hooking up. No matter what, condoms were a must. John had beaten that into both of them when he had discovered Rhonda Hurley’s panties in Dean’s duffle back in his senior year of high school. The only two concerns John seemed to have regarding his sons’ sex lives involved use of condoms and zero emotional attachments. The job came first, always. 

So Sam rolled latex onto Victor, and ignored the taste of it while he wrapped his mouth around him hungrily. He could feel Victor’s hand claw gently into his hair, felt the delicious little sting of a tug on his scalp. His whole body reacted to the touch, and he groaned onto Victor, who answered with a happy sigh. 

Victor, it seemed, was a talker. 

“Yeah. Sam, yeah. You’re real good at that. Damn. You’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, you know that? Had no idea how-how gorgeous you are up close, and damn, you’re-God, you’re so gorgeous like that. Never knew a man so starved out.”

The words added an intense urgency to Sam’s ministrations. Starved out. That was it. That was what Sam was. Starved out, starved of love, starved of affection, starved of hope, starved of touch. He needed this...

“Sammy!”

Sam’s eyes flew open to find Dean staring at him in irritation. “What!” he coughed, flustered. 

“You zoned out on me! I asked who you met up with. You hooked up, right? What’s wrong?”

He took a deep breath. “No, I-I mean, yeah, but it was just some guy I met at a bar.”

Dean stepped back and relaxed a little. “Okay. Well, then, why do you have that look on your face like somebody ate your candy?”

“What? Shut up.”

“Pack your crap. And perk up. You got laid. You’re supposed to be happy about that. Or at least less bitchy.”

Sam scowled at him. “Where are we heading now?”

“Couple hours south. Some weird crap going on in a little town. I’ll tell you in the car. Come on.”

“Dean? We ever going to talk about that crossroads stuff that-“

But Dean’s eyes went cold, and he turned toward the door with his packed bag. “Diner across the street. Don’t take too long doing your hair, or you’ll ride hungry.”

The door closed firmly behind his obstinate brother. Sam sighed. 

Hungry. 

His mind wandered back to the night before. A tiny, sad smile came over him. 

He was still hungry. But he wasn’t as starved as he had been yesterday morning. He could feed on memories of a confident, handsome man until the next time he could partake.


	4. Haunting

The man wouldn’t leave him alone. He ate up Sam’s dreams, chased him in the shadows that flickered as the Impala rolled down the road in the rain. The only one who had haunted Sam this way was Jess. It made sense that Jess followed him. He had loved Jess, had planned to spend his life with her. It made no sense that Victor’s eyes were always staring at him from just outside his periphery. He didn’t even know the guy’s last name. 

Not that Jess had known much else about him than that. 

The rain streamed down the windshield, and the rhythm of the wipers coaxed him toward sleep. The Eagles, Clapton, Chicago and Foreigner competed to drag him under. Damn Dean’s soft rock stations. Sam had no defense. 

“You haven’t been sleeping, kiddo,” his brother had said an hour back. “You getting your headaches again? You’d say something, right?”

Sam had told him to shut up, that he was fine, and he would say so if he started to get the visions again. But he didn’t want to sleep. Everyone he had lost tracked him down while he slept, to accuse him. Jess and John had recurring roles, of course, but there was also Sarah and Victor, who were good memories, who would lull him into letting down his guard, only for Madison or Max to tear into his heart. Watching Sarah’s smile transform into Madison’s face contorting to rip him open was horrifying. Even worse was enjoying Victor’s incredible body when suddenly it became Max firing his handgun into his own head. Sam didn’t want to fall asleep. His loved ones blamed him, and those he had left safe became those he had failed to save. 

But Christopher Cross and Phil Collins had other plans for his stubborn consciousness, and he drifted off as A Groovy Kind of Love became Sailing. He never stood a chance, certainly not after Desperado had already eaten away at his will to remain awake. 

Victor was waiting for him. Sam sighed happily, and dove into his arms on the hotel bed. The man grinned at him with that irresistible confidence. “Heya, Sam. Miss me?”

His head was swimming, and somewhere, music was playing, and Sam snuggled into his lover without shame. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Yeah, I’ve missed you.”

“Did you think about what I said? What I offered?”

This sigh was tainted by frustration. “Victor, I told you. My brother needs me. We just lost our dad. He needs me. And...and I need him. These jobs we take, they help people.”

“Do they, Sam? Or is that just what Dean tells you?”

He shook his head, and lay on Victor’s strong chest. “I didn’t understand why you said that before, and I don’t understand now.”

“You kill people, Sam. Do you understand that part, at least? Dean makes you kill people.”

“I told you-“

“Shh. Okay. Okay, Sam. You’re not ready to see that truth yet. Okay.”

Sam frowned. His frustration was building into anger. “You said something like that to me that night, didn’t you? When you thought I was asleep. Something about Dean messing with my head.”

“Brainwashing,” Victor said quietly. He ran a hand through Sam’s hair. In spite of his aggravation, Sam couldn’t help loving the feeling. “Your brother is brainwashing you, Sam. He makes you think you’re killing monsters. Maybe it’s what he really believes himself. But he’s twisting your mind. He’s making you think...You’re hunting people, Sam.”

“No. No, I’m saving people. You can’t understand. You don’t know what’s out there.”

Victor continued to stroke his hair with a tenderness which contradicted his words. “If you can’t stop, Sam, you’re going to go to prison. One day, you’ll get caught, and they’ll throw away the key, unless you let me help you now. Leave your brother, and come with me. I’ll get you help.”

“My brother needs me,” he said again. It felt like he was speaking underwater, his voice muffled and weak. 

“Your brother is a bad man, Sam. Let me help you.”

Sam shook his head. This was a dream. Yes, Victor had said something like this before, when Sam was mostly asleep. But it hadn’t gone like this, had it? “No,” he whispered. “My visions...I need my brother to help me stay right. I’ll mess up, like Max. I’ll be Max.”

“You killed Max, Sam.”

Tears trickled down his cheeks. “No. No, Max, he killed himself. He knew he couldn’t be saved, couldn’t be brought back from what he had become. I have to keep myself from...from being that.”

Victor nodded slowly. “Okay. But, Sam...You have to keep from hurting anyone else. Not even these people you think are monsters. You’ve got to do it another way.”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. “My father taught me...taught us…”

“Sam, your father was a sick man. A really, really sick man. And he raised his son to be the same kind of sick. The brainwashing started with him. It all started with him, Sam.”

“Son. You mean sons.”

“I mean you, Sam.”

Sam startled awake to find himself in the passenger seat of the Impala, parked at a truck stop, alone. Air Supply was finishing up to make room for REO Speedwagon, but Sam slammed the button to turn it off. The silence was painful. 

“Dean?” he whispered weakly. 

The door opened, and his brother climbed in. “Hey, Sammy. Got you dinner!”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief. “You left me. I thought…”

Dean watched him. “I got you, little brother. That’s my job, right?”

“What’s my job?”

There was sadness on Dean’s face, and he looked older, almost John’s age. “Just keep yourself right, Sam. That’s all. I’ll take care of everything else. Just keep yourself right.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. I’m trying.”

“I know you are, man. Just...here. Eat something.”

“Dean? Do you ever think...like, shifters. They’re just people with this horrible thing about them. Right?”

Dean’s gaze was boring into him. “Yeah. They’re people. But really bad people, who hurt other people.”

Why did he sound like he was talking to a child? “Right. But they’re not...inherently evil.”

Dean snorted, but he shrugged. “I’ve never met a good one.”

“That’s because we only hunt bad things. Right? There could be plenty of good ones out there, but we would never know because we only show up when something terrible has happened.” 

His brother gave him a single, silent nod. 

“What do we do? Dean?” Sam’s head began spinning again, as though he were still in the dream. “Dean, tell me again what we do.”

His brother’s voice was firm, and in moments like this, he nearly sounded like John. “We save people, and we hunt things. Bad things. You know that.”

“Dean? Are we the bad things? Dad thought so. Didn’t he? Thought I was the thing that needed hunting.”

“No. No, Sam, that was me.” The voice had turned bitter now. “Okay? Hey! You hear me? Anything bad that had to be done, I did it.”

“So I wouldn’t have to.”

“So…” He sighed. “Because you can’t. Because that isn’t you. Okay? That’s what I’m for, Sammy. I’m not letting you go dark. Not ever. Eat your dinner.”

And just like that, the conversation was over. Just like that, Dean took on all the fears and trouble onto himself, like only a big brother would know how to do. Sam let him. 

It was late into the night when they spoke again. 

“Dean? You probably should have let me die.”

His brother’s head snapped up. They were in a motel room, another in an endless line of motel rooms which all had the same taste of stale smoke and the same weight of depression. The same room, in every town. “Let you...Why would you say that? That’s stupid. And anyway, which time? I’ve saved your ass more times than I can count.”

“When I got sick.”

Dean shook his head. “Sam, stop. You’re going down a spiral, okay? Look, did we take our meds today? Because you’re starting to sound…”

“I need a hunt, Dean.”

Dean’s face began to gray. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. We just finished a case, Sammy.”

“I need to do something good again, Dean! Something to keep me right!”

“Did we take our-“

“Stop asking about the meds!” he screamed. “Go away!”

And so he did. 

Sam’s lips trembled. “Dean?” he whispered. “Dean, please. Come back, okay?”

The room was silent and still. 

Fear strangled him, and he struggled to breathe through it. “No. It’s okay. He’ll be back. He wouldn’t leave me. Dad...but not Dean. Big brothers don’t leave. 

“Yours did, didn’t he, Sam?”

There was a shock of white light, and Sam blinked against it. “No!” he choked. “Not Dean!”

“How long has it really been, Sam?” Victor asked quietly. “Since you killed Dean, how long?”

He gasped in his breath, and dropped his hands down to find himself at a table. There were cuffs there, on his wrists. They hurt. “Can-can you loosen…”

“Sam, last time I loosened your restraints, you managed to climb the entire wall outside, with another prisoner on your back, even with your ankles still shackled. You’re strong, kid. So no. I’m not loosening anything.”

Sam nodded. “I’m sorry. He said he needed saving. That he needed me to…”

“Yeah, I bet he did. And I don’t care about him. You can’t be trusted beyond that wall, can you, Sam?”

“No, sir.”

Victor nodded. “Sam, if you can just tell me where Dean is-“

“I never meant to hurt anyone.” Not Dean. Never Dean. Not his big brother. 

“Sam, how long ago did you kill Dean?”

He closed his eyes against the light. Inside his lids, he was back in the motel room. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I’ll take my meds.”

“It’s too late for that, Sammy!” Dean was shouting now. “I did everything I could do to keep you from falling into Dad’s madness. Was scared to death it was me!”

Sam blinked at him. “You! Dean, you’re not sick!”

“No. But schizophrenia can be-It runs in families, Sam. And when I learned that, I was sure it would be me. But it wasn’t.”

Victor’s voice was coming from inside his head, even as he stared at Dean. “I thought it was Dean too,” he was saying. “But it wasn’t.”

“It was always me. Dad, he trained me. He taught me. And Dean tried to save me, but-but it was an accident! It was only a stupid accident!”

Dean nodded, and Victor spoke. “It was an accident, Sam, but it killed Dean. Your brother-“

“He kept me right!” Sam sobbed. “He kept me right. When I started hearing things at Stanford, and I burned them up in the apartment, Dean came for me. Helped me run away. And I kept hearing things, these horrible steam whistles, and then I started getting the headaches, and I would fight against the voices and the visions, and kill the monsters to protect the others, and...and then there would be sirens, and Dean would say, time to go, Sammy, and we drove. Just kept driving. All the time. Because he wouldn’t let it kill me. He should’ve let it kill me!”

“You called it Croatoan, Sammy, remember?” Dean urged in a soft voice. “Kept saying you had to burn it out of me. Holy oil and fire. The only way to save me. Remember? The only way to keep me from becoming a demon.”

Sam could hear his brother screaming. He pushed the sounds away. “No. I saved you. You died. But I saved you.”

“And how long ago was that, Sam? Dean helped you run when you killed your girlfriend, helped you cover up after you killed others, tried to make you get help. He even kept you from killing yourself at least once.”

“Should’ve let me die.”

“When was it, Sam?”

“Two years ago,” he breathed. “I killed my brother two years ago.”

“And you’ve been imagining him riding with you ever since. Whenever you do something bad, it’s him. Because-“

“Because he keeps me right. Any bad that has to be done...he does it. It’s what he said. If we were ever caught, just tell them he did all the bad. Because there’s something dark in me, but he loves me anyway, and he would take the fall.”

At last, there was quiet, and at last, Sam opened his eyes to see Victor. “He’s at Bobby’s. In the ground. Bobby was on a trip to Japan. I buried Dean there, and I never told him.”

Victor heaved a sigh. He turned to the silent man behind him. “Bobby Singer’s auto shop. Have them send some dogs.” The man nodded, and the guard opened the door to let him through. 

“He’s been gone all this time,” Sam hissed. 

“Yeah. He has. He’s the only victim we couldn’t find, the last one. It’s over, Sam.”

The young man stared into the handsome face across the table. “I was so lonely,” he whispered. “You used that.”

Victor lowered his gaze. “I thought I’d find Dean through you, Sam. I thought he was messing with your head.”

A strange laugh poured out of his mouth. “Brainwashing,” he spat. “As if anything Dean did could clean my brain. Not after Dad filled it with his monsters.”

“I’m so sorry, Sam. Look, I’m still working on getting you transferred, you know. To a mental health facility. That’s where you belonged from the start. That’s where Dean should’ve taken you from the start.”

“Dean should’ve put me in the ground before I did it to him. He couldn’t save my dad, but he thought he could save me from him. If it weren’t for Dad, maybe I’d just be crazy and not a monster. And if it weren’t for Dean...maybe I’d be dead by now.”

Victor sighed. 

Sam looked up at him, with tears streaking his face. “Please loosen these.”

Heartbreak clouded Victor’s eyes. “You know I can’t. Sam, please.”

“I’ll tell them. What you did to catch me. I’ll tell them.”

He winced, not with Sam’s words but his own. “And I’ll tell them you’re crazy, Sam,” he sighed. 

“I was so lonely inside my head that I kept my dead brother alive to watch over me. You used that to reel me in.”

“I used it to save you, Sam. I thought I was hunting Dean.”

“I am Dean.”

Victor’s voice choked with emotion, and he had to take a moment to pull himself together. “I know that now. You’ve been Dean for two years. And now we’re going to let Dean rest.”

“I’ll never rest, Victor. You can lock me in as tight as you like. But I’ll never rest. And by tomorrow, I’ll forget that Dean’s gone, and I won’t let him rest either. He’ll do all my bad for me. I’ll save people. He’ll hunt them.”

“And...and that’s why I can’t loosen the cuffs, Sam.”

Sam sat back. “I don’t need you to. But it would’ve been nice if you had. Only thing Dean and I need is each other. And you can do what you want with his body. He’s still going to watch over me.”

“Past two weeks, I’m the one who’s been doing that, Sam. Because everyone else is dead.”

“And because you know there’s something dark in me, but some guys...that’s exactly what they’re looking for. And one day, when I’m out of here, you’ll wish you had loosened these for me.”

He could feel Victor’s tremble from across the table. But the man smiled grimly. “Because you’re going to come kill me?”

“No. Because I’m not going to let you find me again. I once offered to be anything you wanted me to be. Right now, you’re forcing me to be what my dad wanted me to be. It could’ve gone the other way.”

When the cuffs slipped off, Sam could hear the whistle, could see the guards shouting to one another, could feel Victor crying out. There were lights flashing, but Sam ignored them. He took down three guards and used their key cards to open the doors. He spared an instant to look back at Victor with heavy regret, noted that the man had aimed his sidearm, but was not able to make himself fire. Then Sam tore through the detention facility, and toward freedom outside. Small town cages were no match for his father’s training. 

Dean caught up as he reached the woods. His big brother was laughing. They stopped to rest before escaping further into the thick darkness. Dean leaned on his knees and cackled. “Thought you were going to wait forever, kiddo! Ready to hit the road?”

Sam looked back in the direction of the facility. None of them would be able to catch him. He had left two false trails along the way, and he knew how to survive out here better than any of them. 

Dean wasn’t real, not anymore. He knew that. But he had given Victor one last chance. Sam would rather believe in a brother who wasn’t real than a lover who was fake. 

He smiled to himself. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go. We’ve got work to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> As a famous rabbit once said, I think this story took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Hope you had fun with it anyway. Hope Rirren forgives me. 
> 
> ~Posing


End file.
